All Things Weird and Wonderful...

“There is always something new from Africa” — Ancient Roman Saying

Friday, 8 April 2000

I don’t know about people in other parts of the world, but over here, 2000 will probably be remembered for a long time, not only for having been the Roman calendar’s millennium rollover date, but also because it has just been such a completely odd year for most of us.

At the beginning of this week, we had the hottest weather. A nice warm wind, but dry instead of tropical and moist. Then on Monday night, massive cumulus clouds came boiling over from the mountains, creating a breathtaking extravaganza of light and textures as the sun went down, and finally toppling over onto the miles of dry bushveld. That night the wind howled, and it changed from being extremely hot, to being quite cold within an hour. It rained a little, and since then we’ve had the coldest weather so far since spring last year. On the Drakensberg mountains it has been snowing a bit, and the high interior is still shivering with really cold weather. In the Olifants valley it is just nice, although the cooler conditions and cloudiness tends to make us all feel miserable. – We’re just not used to it. Other than that, winter is slow in coming. The trees haven’t burst into their usual brilliant display of ochre autumn colours, and if it keeps raining like this, then many of them might hang on to their leaves and stay green all winter long – something which will make the giraffes very happy and which hasn’t happened in ten years of drought.

Always more news about Mozambique: Yesterday the third cyclone has swept across Mozambique’s northern Zambezia province! One of their ministers lamely reported on television that “we don’t know what we have done wrong to deserve this...” In the meantime I was told that an incident was screened on TV which showed a big Canadian cargo plane unloading flood relief supplies to the starving inhabitants. It then showed how a very irate inhabitant approached one of the officers and demanded to receive meat instead of basic foodstuffs. He was supposed to have kept on demanding and displaying such an evil attitude that the officer finally chased everyone out the cargo hold, closed the doors and told his pilot to take off and go home again! I wonder if anybody learnt the lesson as those hungry people watched that plane full of food fly away again and in my sinfulness, couldn’t help but think there was some kind of harsh justice in it. A lot about happiness is routed in thankfulness.

I saw something this week which I’ve never seen in my life before. It was slowly getting dark and I was still working at my desk, when I heard the desperate screams of some animal being murdered in the bush. It sounded so desperate that I immediately grabbed my camera and rushed out – minus shoes, which was incredibly stupid – to investigate. It proved to be a young waterbuck calf that had just been caught by a very large python. Unfortunately it was on the opposite side of the river, and not having the courage to swim a flooded river full of crocodiles and bilharzia, I couldn’t get close enough for pictures. But it was interesting nevertheless. The mother kept circling round and round, but the snake ignored her completely. It just lay there with perhaps one or two coils around the little calf’s neck. The rest of the reptile was just one big pile of black coils next to the little animal, so I have no idea how long it was. Thus it lay there until darkness descended. During the night it must have swallowed its prey, for the next morning it was completely gone. The snake probably won’t go far, so anyone on that side of the river might still be able to find it. It will also probably not have to eat again for the rest of the winter. That was one happy snake!

I had a friend who came to stay with us for a few months once, and he brought two smaller ones in a sack – his pets! We tried to play with them, but they just weren’t cuddly enough. One was about a five-footer, so they really weren’t big at all. They would sometimes bite, and with teeth as long and as thick as syringe needles, they inflicted nasty wounds that bled a lot. My friend kept one which eventually grew into a really big snake. One day he was lying in the bath with his snake, when the snake encircled him. It constricted him to the point where he had to call for his older brother to help him untangle the snake’s coils. I think he sold the snake after that.

But Craig always was an adventurous boy. Twice in national parks, I remember him stopping the car, saying that he had smelt a snake – and in both cases he found the snake soon afterwards. The second time was next door, in Kruger Park. He jumped out and almost immediately found an average-sized python – about five feet, I think. He chased it in the tall grass for a while, and then other cars began to pull up, trying to see what we had spotted. This turned to be a problem, because people aren’t allowed outside their cars in the parks. One minibus in particular, proved to be very eager to get a snapshot of my friend and kept driving backwards and forwards to get a clear shot with their long telephoto lenses so that they might claim a reward for reporting him. It all eventually came to a comical end when I drank a glass of water, and as they slowly drove past again, pretended so shoot its contents through the minibus’ window. The fellow tried to shut it so fast, that he ripped the window out of its frame! So he saved what was left of his ego by departing rapidly... Craig left the snake, and we all sped off in haste. He had numerous large bites on this stomach though, for he had lain on an ants nest, and not daring to move an inch, he simply had to endure slowly being eaten alive…

Speaking of which – I saw a long line of army ants again this week. Curious animals. They all march in one straight line and devour any living thing in their path. They’ll even raid the nests of other ants, and you can often see them carrying away the live pupae of ants and other insects, which they’d kidnapped. The locals are always glad when they pass through their huts, because the ants always clean it of all spiders, cockroaches, bedbugs, baby mice and other pests. There have also been stories of unattended little black babies that have been eaten alive, though. I can think of only one case, however, which appeared to be a confirmed one. I think it happened last year, and the baby was dead by the time they reached the hospital. If you’ve ever read Henry Chariérre’s experiences in his book “Banco,” (sequel to “Papillon”) you might remember that it took the ants three days to kill a guard which his fellow-prisoners had tied to an ants nest in French Guyana.

I also remember an old fellow telling the story about his adventures when cycling from Cape Town to Cairo many, many years ago. He claimed that while he was asleep, someone had stolen his boot-laces. He only found them a long distance from his tent the next morning. According to him, army ants had invaded his tent that night, and stealthily worked his laces out of his boots! Next morning he found their columns neatly carrying both laces in two long lines, and summarily relieved the critters of their loot. If you ask me whether I think that was true or not, I would just say that just as some shoe laces are longer than others, I think some stories are taller than most.

Maybe I should say something about our game warden too. He is a man with a funny sense of humour and always a taste for adventure. Like a few days ago when he was patrolling in the rain, looking for snares and poachers... He suddenly came upon a path, and in it, one of the local women was walking along in the rain. So in a moment of boredom and with the devil riding his shoulders and tightly holding on to both his ears, he decided to do something stupid. He sneaked up to the road some distance ahead and waited for her to pass a large bush. As she did so, he leapt from the bushes and roared as loud as he could. He said if it wasn’t for her having such a small mouth, she might have leapt right out of her skin for sheer terror! It seemed, he explained, that she got much wetter than could be attributed to the rain alone... A bit cruel perhaps, but she shouldn’t have been walking there anyway. They don’t want to listen and stop taking shortcuts where it is dangerous to do so. Like the one who was badly chewed up by a hippo two years ago. About a mile downstream from home. Did I tell you about it? She went to hide her moonshine amongst the reeds one night, and walked into a big mouth full of ivory in the process. And that was that. A very short story indeed.

Maybe I should tell you about their moonshine... Over here, for some bizarre reason, they have this really crazy belief that getting drunk should be an unpleasant experience. So they brew their own mixtures of sorghum beer. Only, it isn’t like ordinary bear. It is like thin porridge. Quite nutritious really, but it tastes like ah... sour porridge, I guess. And when this is fortified they like to add various secret elements for added “bite.” This comes from secret family recipes, handed down over generations. Popular elements are: battery acid, battery powder (the black magnesium dioxide from dry cell batteries), cayenne pepper, copper sulphate, alum, etc. The doctors say sometimes their patients die of massive ulcers, and occasionally, when something goes wrong with the recipe, the patient is already dead when he/she gets to hospital – with the entire lower oesophagus eaten away. I’ve got another acquaintance who is a really superb home-brewer. He brews descent beer and sell is to them on the black market, and justifies his breaking the law by saying that, “I’m saving their lives by selling them cheap, good stuff...”

Professor Marassas, one of my old lecturers, got famous for having discovered the reason why there is such a massive occurrence of throat cancer among certain tribes. He traced it back to their brewing processes during which they unknowingly cultivate moulds that produce unique  aflatoxins that cause this cancer. He was actually led to his discovery almost by accident, when he learnt that these beer-brewers had a habit of sometimes suddenly going completely mad – for good. He found that when he’d isolated the toxins and injected them into horses, the animals would suddenly go stark raving mad, and eventually flop down dead. Post-mortems revealed that huge parts of the brain had been completely dissolved! So if anyone offers you native beer in Africa – it is strongly suggested that you try to politely refuse!

Incidentally, those bold and daring boys who nearly buried their Landrover last week showed up three days ago, bearing precious gifts of designer candy to say thank-you – two large bags full! Apparently the neighbour had threatened to phone their school principal to inform him about the moral fibre that his students have been showing lately. Interesting how two bags of candy made the neighbour forget about his plans, though. I got one bag for myself, though. It was sweet indeed!

Finally, there always has to be something political to report in South Africa. This week again. In neighbouring Zimbabwe, the squatter-issue is becoming explosive. The white farmers are desperately trying to hang on to their land, while their farms are still being invaded by the masses who call themselves “war veterans.” The only strange thing is that from what I see on TV, most “war veterans” appear to be in their twenties or younger. Since the bush war only ended in the early eighties, they must surely have been the youngest “bush-terrorists” I’ve ever heard of.

Those poor farmers have major problems. Their farm infrastructure is being destroyed, their equipment sabotaged, broken and stolen, and there’s nothing they can do about it. President Mugabe is becoming more-and-more hostile towards the world for trying to intervene. His country is also in dire financial difficulties, owing to his army’s involvement in the Congo, and due to the fact that the farmers have completely stopped producing. Most of their national income comes from the sale of tobacco, so the financial pressure is mountain. The “war veterans” have already publically declared that if Mugabe goes back on his promises to give them their demands, they would start a new civil war. An interesting twist to the tale comes with the news that old Mr Ian Smith, the last white prime minister, has just started a new political party, together with a black political leader. He must be in his eighties or nineties now and is quite frail, but he’s a farmer too, and strangely enough, a lot of black Zimbabweans are howling to have him back. They say that under his government they still had jobs and salaries. Zimbabwe was a pretty good place to live in back then. Two black Zimbabweans told me they are “suffering too much,” and two or three months ago, another black ex-Zimbabwean said he’d never go back there because Mugabe is a hateful man who has ruined the country. Only fifteen years ago he was seen as a knight in shining armour, and the “deliverer from colonial oppression.” What strange circles history likes to make at times…

The other problem is fuel. Ttheir already bad fuel shortage is becoming worse. One can only buy 20 litres of fuel a day, regardless of the size of one’s vehicle, and it has to be tapped into a container – not into the tank. Apparently their one other sound industry, the hunting and tourism industry, is also in a panic as nobody wants to go on safari when the country is in civil unrest and they don’t know whether their planes would have fuel to fly them back out again. Our fuel prices have also shot up by 27c/litre, to nearly US$2,30 a gallon. Bad news. African transport is always something crazy.

Ever wondered why South Africa has some of the worst car accidents statistics in the world? Ask my neighbour at his hospital. Much of his time is spent sewing up the victims of people who’ve been in accidents where the vehicles were incredibly overcrowded, or went out of control due to non-roadworthiness. Take the following picture, for instance. How many people do you think there is on it? He recently had to write a police statement for a woman who was trying to sue the driver of a pick-up, probably such as the one here. There was nearly thirty people on it, and all were drunk. The vehicle finally went out of control at a ridiculously low speed, and some were killed and others injured. The plaintiff herself had only light injuries which weren’t visible any more by the time she came to the hospital. I guess she’s was thinking like an American, though: “If there’s money to be made in suing someone and it won’t cost me anything, then it’s worth a try!”

Or how about the picture of this old Toyota Landcruiser?

It is one used by a farmer not far from here. It is an authentic survivor of the Zimbabwean bush war. The bullet holes are still visible and in a land that’s alive with vicious thorns, the tyres are filled with solid rubber! It is started by borrowing the battery from the farmer’s Mercedes first. The one mudguard tends to fall off occasionally, and the front seat has a blanked thrown over to keep the protruding springs from puncturing one’s hide. It’s old and you can see the road through the rush-holes at your feet, but it starts at the first go, and nobody is interested in stealing it! So why get rid of something that still works great? Yes why indeed? Standing next to it is my dad, some years ago. Last time I heard, the old Landcruiser was still going strong after more than twenty years of sound service. The good just gets better!

Have a great week,

Herman